Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Baby Quilt Tutorial

Several months ago I blog surfing and somewhere along the links I saw a quilt. It was a darling baby quilt, but the website I found it on didn't have a tutorial or pattern for me to bookmark. Sadly, I'm not sure I could even find my way back to the first quilt I saw, but the idea stuck with me.

Then a week or so ago I was making a list of all the things I hope to make before my baby boy is born and on the top of my list was a quilt.

Grace got this adorable quilt (above) from Annee when she was born, and we still use it today. It's the perfect size to lay down on the ground and let my baby (and his siblings) roll around on.

I started searching all my favorite quilt sites for a fun quilt to try, and I spent plenty of time on Etsy trying to decide on what kind of fabric I needed to add to my stash to make the perfect quilt. Nothing was inspiring me, and then I thought of the quilt I saw many months back, and then I decided I was going to figure it out. I also decided that it was the perfect kind of quilt to just use scraps. I have plenty of them, so why not use them.

And a little quilt was born. I'm going to call it the Criss Cross Quilt.

I used this quilt link as a reference, but honestly I'm not sure how I found it or how I figured out that I could make the quilt I wanted to by referencing it.

To make this quilt I used over 25 different fabrics and almost all of them came from my scrap bin.

To make a 38"X38" baby quilt you will need:

100 colorful fabric 4 1/2" squares

200 white fabric 2 1/2" squares

batting

thread

fabric for back

fabric for binding

Your first step is to sew 2 small white squares onto one of the larger colorful squares in opposite corners. Like so.

After cutting all my fabric, this might have been one of the more tedious steps. I sewed a white square to each colorful square without cutting my sewing machine thread. After I sewed 100 white squares to the 100 colorful squares, I took my long link of squares and cut them apart, and then sewed the remaining 100 white squares on the opposite corners.

Keep them linked. It makes this step go so much fasters!

Next step you need to cut the corners of each of your squares to look like the picture below.

Then iron the seam allowances.

The front side will now look like this:

Then I laid out all of my squares making sure all the fabrics worked together.

Then I assembled each criss cross. Using a 1/4" seam allowance, I sewed the top and bottom of the criss cross together first.

Ironed the seam allowances, and then sewed both the top and bottom together with a 1/4" seam allowance.

I sewed all 40 criss cross blocks together first, then I sewed each row of criss cross blocks together using a 1/4" seam allowance.

And lastly I sewed all 5 rows together. And my quilt top was born.

On the back I used some extra squares I accidentally made. (I guess my stacks above were a little larger than 100 colorful squares and 200 white ones. Those are big numbers so it's easy to lose track when counting.)

Then I finished up the quilt by stippling it and binding it. Would you believe me if I told you it was easier to do the Free Motion Quilting on the twin quilts I made a month ago then it was to FMQ this little baby blanket?? It was. The reason why is because I ran out of quilting adhesive spray. I ended up having to unpick a LOT of my stipple, and then I drove all the way to JoAnn's for quilt spray. Kind of tragic and lame to have to take an extra trip to JoAnn's for just one thing, but in the end it was so worth it. I don't think I'll ever try to quilt a quilt without the handy spray.

I crossed off several other items on the list of things to sew before my baby arrives. I have more to show and tell this week. Get so excited! Tootles for now!

9 comments:

Liz!! It turned out so great. I am particularly in love with the back. It's such an optical illusion. I love it!! I still can't really believe that you just figured out how to make it. How fun to use so many fabrics in one quilt. It's totally perfect.

I love the vintage picture! That quilt was made before i even used to really sew :)

So awesome! I have been poking around for a scrappy quilt idea. When I first saw the picture I thought it looked too hard, but the technique really looks easy! Thanks for the tutorial and I will for sure try it out!

Hi Liz, What a great idea for a baby quilt! I just wanted to let you know that I linked to this tutorial on my website, FaveQuilts.com. You can see it here: http://www.favequilts.com/Quilts-For-Baby/Criss-Cross-Baby-QuiltE-mail me when you get the chance to let me know if this is alright.Thanks!Jessica